I am Better than You Because I am White Middle-class
Don Howard
SOC 312: Ethnicity, Social Class and the Family
Dr. Burrell
March 19, 2010
I am better than you because I am white middle-class
Everywhere you look or listen there are biases. We may tell ourselves we don’t have any, but somewhere deep inside each one of us there is a bias ready to erupt. The fact is, each one of us were raised in a different way and had different influences. The ideologies of our parents, grandparents, teachers, preachers, and friends all rub off on us to an extent. We may not think we have a bias until someone from another class or racial background does something to bother us. Actually it may even be someone from our own class or race. The movie Crash that came out in 2004 was about all different ethnic backgrounds and was set in Los Angeles, California. Throughout the movie there were people that acted as if they were not racist and then in a traffic jam this woman screamed out to the car in front of her, “go back to your own country.” On top of being influenced by other people we allow the world to infect us with radio, television, tabloids, newspapers, magazines, and anything else someone is writing to us for ratings. Those things are fine to have in our life if we monitor what we take in. There is a phrase I have heard quite often, garbage in garbage out. I try to live by that phrase.
There are many different ways to be biased and all are not bad. Certain people are bias to a particular food, or types of clothing, political and religious view. On the other hand, some people are just mean about it and are bias toward the places they go due to the social class or race of the area. I know white people that won’t even set foot in Detroit because they fear their life. That is so absurd to me, but they are just going off of what has been fed in to their brains for so long. It needs to be clear whether it is a bias, prejudice, or just flat out racism...